Urban Peace Institute Leadership Institute

Community safety

Expand existing project, program, or initiative (expanding and continuing ongoing, successful work)

UPI develops and advances community safety practices in LA and throughout the country to dismantle oppressive and harmful institutions and establish lasting safety that is community-led. UPI works in underserved neighborhoods providing training and power-building tools for residents in violence-impacted areas to advocate for better community safety initiatives, practices and strategies in their neighborhoods. Through its Safer Streets Initiative, UPI has conducted over 10 years of community safety assessments in the Harvard Park, Watts and South Park communities, establishing relationships and credibility with residents and stakeholders to build holistic safety solutions beyond traditional law enforcement approaches. Residents have continually raised safety concerns that diminish childrens’ ability to safely play and move around freely outside due to gun violence, ongoing drug use, and built environmental challenges resulting in lack of pedestrian and community safety infrastructures.

UPI believes that community safety must be community-led, and as such, our Leadership Institute will adopt a “train the trainer” model, training and empowering residents to lead community safety initiatives and impact change community-wide. Through the program, UPI will develop trained leaders to spearhead neighborhood advocacy campaigns, establish relationships between government agencies and stakeholders, and lead training sessions to engage and instruct emerging resident leaders. Participants in our Leadership Institute will be selected from our growing cohort of residents engaged in our existing School Safety Collaboratives in the Harvard Park, Watts and South Park communities. The program will provide these active community residents with the tools, support and platform, to hone their civic engagement proficiency and strategize future neighborhood safety initiatives. Within each focus area, our Leadership Institute participants will leverage School Safety Collaboratives to strategically address identified ongoing safety concerns and build community-led coalitions. Through a proven curriculum focused on increasing resident understanding and application of systems navigation, organizing for community safety, intervention and prevention methodologies, and power-building, UPI will facilitate trainings to establish lasting change, harnessing the unique strengths of our developing leaders and preparing them for ongoing advocacy to increase community safety and health.

UPI has a fundamental belief that everyone deserves a life of peace, hope and power. Black and Brown communities in LA have been overlooked, experiencing decades of public disinvestment and structural racism, leading to neighborhoods experiencing high levels of violence and gang activity. UPI uplifts and develops community leaders, utilizing power-building to establish a safety ecosystem that can function independently of institutions that have previously created and upheld these harmful systems of oppression.
As UPI’s vision for the future expands, we understand the importance of centering disenfranchised communities to create and implement systems designed to improve their own lives. This ownership of community safety strategies ensures lasting change that is deeply-rooted within each neighborhood’s culture. This program allows UPI to train the next generation of community leaders focused on community safety, ensuring a reduction of violence as well as an increase in peace and pride.

UPI utilizes pre and post-test evaluation methods to measure the effectiveness of our programming. The pre-test determines participants' understanding of local government, systems navigation, the role of prevention and intervention, and available community resources. An identical test is administered at the end of the program to determine the training’s success. Previous results have shown that 98% of participants have demonstrated significant improvement in systems understanding and ability to organize around safety initiatives, indicating that our in-depth classes effectively enhance their understanding and advocacy skills. In addition, UPI partners with UC Davis’ Violence Prevention Research Program to evaluate the organization’s success in reducing violence in South LA over the next three years, by examining the efficacy of UPI’s efforts to expand its School Safety Collaboratives and Leadership Institute to develop resident engagement and leadership of safety strategies.